How to Run Android Apps on Windows Phone for free

If you have ever used Android or iOS before, you must have realized that the sophistication of the user experience of Windows phones is simply unmatched. However, even though Microsoft has always dominated the PC market, it does not enjoy a comparable reputation in the world of mobile phones. The main reason behind this is the indifference shown by the app developers towards the platform. We see many Windows Phone users everyday on forums, ranting about the lack of even small, necessary apps that they need for everyday activities, like Google Maps.

Imagine what it would be like if we could run Android apps on a Windows phone. We could combine the best part of Windows, the user experience and the high-end cameras in Phones like the Lumia, with the thousands of cool Android apps that exist. That would be perfect. Well, I have good news for you – this is very possible and this is what I am going to show you.

Run android apps on Windows phone 8/10

1. On your Windows Phone, go to Settings, navigate to Update & security and then to For Developers. Enable Developers Mode

2. Make sure your device is available for Discovery so that you can pair your phone to any other device using a pair code. This can be done by moving the Device Discovery slider to the on position

3. In the same window, scroll down and press the Pair button to get your pair code. Write it down somewhere.

4. On your PC, Download the Connect tool from here, and then android SDK in the adb tool from here

5. Extract the downloaded files to a folder using a software like WinRar

6. Open the wconnect folder and install both the IpOverUsbInstaller.msi and vcredist_x86.exe

7. Connect your phone to your computer via USB

8. Run Command Prompt as Administrator from the Start Menu

9. Change the directory to where wconnect.exe is found by inputting cd C:UsersYourusernameDownloadsFolderthatcontainswpconnect

10. Press enter

11. Type wconnect.exe and press enter

12. Enter the pairing code that you previously noted if asked

13. Now change the directory for the adb tool by typing the following in the command prompt cd C:Program Files (x86)android-sdkplatform-tools

14. To install any app, copy its APK file adb folder directory and type adb install followed by the name of the app. For example, if you want to install Solid Explorer, you would type adb install pl.solidexplorer2-2.0.11-100044-minAPI16.apk and hit enter .

Top 10 Android apps for Windows Phone users

1. Piktures

To kick things off, we have PiKtures, the cleanest and most beautiful gallery app you will ever find. This application will organize your pictures in different folders so you can navigate through each photo with ease. It also loads up your pictures extremely fast and you can filter each picture by a specific location. There’s also a calendar which shows when each of your pictures was taken to help you remember the past and see what you were doing on that specific day.

2. Unclouded

This application will clean your cloud storage by removing duplicate and unnecessary files. So far, the only cloud storages that are supported are Dropbox and Google Drive but the developers are working on applying more in the future. This is great for those who need a basic overview of their cloud storage and to see what is using up most of their storage.

3. Liveboot

Liveboot requires root but if you don’t have root, this will be an application that you don’t need but you probably want. This will show you an animation of what is going on when your phone is booting up your entire system. So, when you click restart or when you are powering on your phone, you basically get like a summary of what’s going on in code. You will obviously not read it all but it still looks cool because it makes you feel like a hacker or a boss.

4. Archon packager

It is the first application to let you run any application that’s on your phone to your computer through Google Chrome. You can run Instagram, Twitter, games and any application that you would use on a daily basis right on your laptop. It has quite a steep learning curve but definitely worth it.

5. YouTube Creator Studio

YouTube Creator Studio is YouTube’s official application to manage your YouTube channel on the go. This is a great way to see your analytical statistics and updates to your channel if you make videos. What’s great about this application is how easy the interface is to use.

6. Cram

Cram is an image compressor application to shrink the size of your pictures so they won’t take up too much space on your phone. Nowadays, pictures that you take on your phone are usually 2 to 5 MB in size, which is unnecessarily huge. With this app, you won’t need to worry about the size being an issue. The image quality and dimensions all stay the same. The only thing that changes is the size from MB to KB.

7. Heads up

Heads up it’s a great application that shows you your notifications by using a banner. It’s great for situations when you can’t see your status bar, like when watching a video. When you have a notification, it will pop up as a banner, which is very useful. It also displays the expanded notifications so you can delete, move, copy and interact with notifications besides clearing them.

8. Lazy swipe

The concept to lazy swipe is that you can bring up a menu from any application. You can launch your recent applications, your favorite applications and you can toggle menus such a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. Everything works smoothly and the trigger can be placed anywhere on the side of your screen. For example, you can turn on your flashlight from any application, mess around with the brightness or switch to Instagram without minimizing YouTube.

9. Frontback

Frontback allows you to take a photo with the front camera and another with the back camera and most importantly, share them both and a single image. It’s a great way of telling someone what you are doing and showing your reaction to an object in the same photo. There are more than a million users and you can view other people’s photos and even like and comment on them.

10. Shuttle

The reason why this is such an incredible music player, in my opinion is because of the customization that you can do. In the settings, you can change how the main page looks, rearrange the category tabs and also change the overall color theme. You can add artworks to all your music and albums and even set a sleep timer at night. I definitely recommend checking this out for all of you who enjoy listening to music.